Can increased Student-Teacher Connection Improve Student Performance?

Description:

The outcomes that I want to see are to improve:

  1. the timeliness of assignment submission
  2. classroom preparedness, and
  3. communication between me and my students

Anecdotally, attendance is typically low and erratic in most classes at NorthwestIndianCollege. My students tend to be on the erratic end; coming to class and spending several hours doing class work and then not attending class again for several days. They put in the hours, just not necessarily in a linear fashion. Also, many of my students, who are probably not atypical, wait until near the end of the quarter to turn in assignments that were assigned early and throughout the quarter. And, students often come to class inadequately prepared by not having done the reading or homework assignments.

I would like to see if providing weekly comprehensive information in an electronic format will positively affect student attendance and performance. The information provided to each student will be about:

  1. attendance,
  2. assignments completed,
  3. assignments not completed,
  4. future assignment schedule,
  5. current grade, and
  6. other pertinent encouraging feedback.

Methodologies:

I propose that if I can keep in better contact with my students, they will become more consistent with all things class-related. Better contact means, at least weekly, they receive their attendance report, assignments that have been submitted and which assignments that still need to be submitted, and future assignments. I also want to be seen as encouraging and supportive. How can I improve my commitment to my students if attendance is sketchy? “Email or Moodle”, you say? Web technology works if students have access to the Internet, and even if they do, they may not check their email or Moodle site regularly.

I further propose that each student be issued a Kindle because it:

  • contains their textbook,
  • can read anything that is on the device (textbook included) via Text-to-Speech,
  • has a built in dictionary that can define a word by focusing on it,
  • that has its own Internet connection (no charge for the Internet connection),
  • has its own email address, and
  • is really non-intrusive

“Why would a Kindle encourage students to stay better connected with their instructor?” First, it’s not like lugging a laptop, or even a tablet computer around. Second, it has its own Internet access (It uses a free unlimited 3G network.) so students won’t have to come to campus to get connected to the Internet. My sense is, if it’s at hand, it’s easy to use, and if it’s useful, it will be used. Since it can connect to the Internet, this means other email and Moodle access is more likely.

Implementation

  1. Provide a Kindle on a quarter loan basis to each student enrolled in Winter 2010 CMPS 116, Microsoft Access class.
  2. The instructor will use his Kindle to provide weekly information to each of the students via student email. This will be their attendance (what it is, compared to what it should be), assignments submitted, assignments not submitted in a timely fashion, upcoming assignments, and any notes or other information that is pertinent and encouraging.
  3. Students will be required to submit comments of a minimum of 100 words to a discussion forum (perhaps Moodle, perhaps special NWIC Blog) or paper
  4. Students will be required to keep a for-author-and-instructor eyes only online journal about their perspectives on their learning and NWIC education.
  5. A weekly entry with a minimum of 100 words is required.
  6. The textbook will be on the Kindle which means that reading it

Assessment Methods

  1. I compared previous years’ attendance in CMPS 116 courses with this quarter’s CMPS 116 daily attendance.
  2. Students wrote weekly journal entries regarding their use of the Kindle, its usefulness, and how many hours that the students studied for this course outside of the classroom provided anecdotal data
  3. We had informal discussions about their Kindle use and the Kindle in general.

Data

Week One(6th week of the quarter)

The Kindles were purchased and given to the students during the week of February 15, fully 6 weeks after the quarter had started and students were already in a routine of using the online tutorials, projects, and instructor supplied materials and lectures. I did not want them to purchase the full priced textbook because they were to purchase the Kindle version at a substantial savings.

I handed out the 6 Kindles to the students, who received them with considerable excitement. Many exclamations similar to "I can use this while driving, doing dishes, etc." "I'll read more". "I wonder how I can get my boyfriend to get me one?" I explained that they were part of a research project to see if the Kindle is a useful tool for students, if it will help in doing their homework. I didn't tell them about my goal of improving attendance and timeliness of turning in homework. Initial written responses are on file.

Week Two(7th week of the quarter)

Student comments:

  1. As a textbook, you need to use the computer and the Kindle in order to understand what you're reading.
  2. I really like listening to it while driving/doing housework.
  3. The dictionary is fantastic, I use it a lot do English things.
  4. I'm afraid to buy one because as soon as I do, they will have a color one.
  5. I went to Barnes and Noble and they gave me some information on the Nook. How does it compare to the Kindle?

Instructor Observations: The students needed a credit or debit card to purchase the textbook. I tried to work with Amazon to all me to purchase all of the books at once using my credit card. There system wouldn’t allow it because each Kindle has to be registered and it has to be registered to an account that is setup with Amazon.com. Four students were unable to purchase the textbook.

Week Three(8th week of the quarter)

Student comments: Students indicated in their written responses that they enjoyed having the Kindle, it made them feel special and it was nice to be able to have the Kindle read to them.

Instructor Observations: Three students have yet to make arrangements to download their textbook; however all indicated they would have it by class this Thursday. No one has checked their email with it. One student has the textbook on her IPhone and her Kindle.

Week Four (9th week of the quarter)

Student comments: It’s difficult to follow the text while trying to work on the computer, the text is too small and I have to constantly pick the Kindle up to read it. I enjoyed reading the samples of books from Amazon. I wish I could afford to buy one.

Instructor Observations: The student didn’t know about making the text size bigger. Most of the students found the Kindle interesting although somewhat limiting in the type of class work we were doing.

Week Five (10th week of the quarter)

Student comments:The Kindle is good for multitasking. It's good for ordering books and other things from Amazon. Having the Kindle read to me helped me read more of my text book.

Instructor Observations:Kindle use has dimished because of the projects being due be next week.

Week Six (11th and finals week of the quarter)

Student comments: In general several of the students thought that the Kindle would be great for classes that involved a considerable amount of reading. Four of the six indicated that, if they had the funds, they would buy a Kindle for personal use.All six indicated that they would purchase one for school use.

Instructor Observations:Most indicated that it was too clumsy to surf the Internet and get email. Having their progress on a piece of paper held much more import than seeing it as an email.

Results

timeliness of assignment submission:I perhaps saw a slight increase in timeliness of assignments turned in. I say “perhaps” because the assignments were slightly more timely; however, the classes met two times per week for 1.5 hours instead of the three times for an hour each week. This may have afforded more class time for assignment completion.

classroom preparedness:Class preparedness is inconclusive because two students were never able to get their textbooks and were just as prepared as those who had their textbooks. This happened because of the aforementioned factor of not receiving the Kindles at the beginning of the quarter and because of that, I changed the curriculum significantly by not relying so heavily on a textbook.

communication between me and my students: Again, because the Kindles were late in arriving and I had earlier established a communications routine as outlined in the Description using printouts handed out the first class of the week, communication definitely improved, but not because of the Kindle. The 3G network, while always available was not very fast which meant that the Internet and student email was somewhat laborious to use.

Conclusions

The Kindle may be a great textbook replacement what with its easy book marking, note taking abilities, and audible reading capabilities. However, as a technical textbook that requires using the Kindle while following along on a computer, this proved to be somewhat problematic based upon student comments.

Having the Kindle enter the learning process so late in the quarter definitely limited its function. The students were used to and enjoyed having a printout of their weekly class position and my comments. The found that trudging through student email (which sometimes didn’t work) on a slow network was too much effort and therefore weren’t consistently checking their email.

Likewise, the slow and awkward Internet connection led to many more responses being done on paper, rather than electronically.

All recorded data and data analysis worksheets are available in hardcopy only.